tea with Anushka
tea with Anushka
I was summoned to tea with Anushka
she is a dedicated collector of culture,
haunting antique bookshops
‘liberating’ volumes of art,
music, poetry, philosophy,
to sit gathering dust
in her private library
discreet vans turn up from time to time
her treasures are labelled, documented,
and packed for return to whence they came
Anushka has shelves to fill… again.
so she heads off to a town
where she’s not known
browsing for first editions, curios,
ottomans, and ‘opulents’
a weathered sign, ‘The Hermitage’
fixed to the railing of her dwelling
declares a Romanov ancestry
I play along with her untruths
and take vodka – good stuff –
Luksosowa
her maisonette was typically grubby,
Anushka moaned, she’d sacked the cleaner
and did I like her bust of Caesar
sparkling on the new vitrine?
oh and by the way,
would I do her a favour
and pop to Spar for milk, sugar,
bread, petit fours, and pâté,
and put it on her slate?
I cleared her tab… again
with sterling-silver butter knives,
and nibbled Kipling’s off a lazy susan
she lit her next-to-last Sobranie
with a flame from a gilt torchère
Rublov’s Icon of the Trinity
through the blinds Anushka glimpsed
a plain black van cruising, stopping,
she gulped and blanched
real tears flooded through the bars
of ‘Nushka’s ‘natural look’ lashes
I reached across to brush away
the beads of resignation
trickling her cheeks
This is a work of art not to be hidden away on the dusty bookshelves of “collectors”.
Extremely well done.
thanks, Bhi – it is a ruthless edit of a work that has been in a couple of my books already – I am never satisfied – poetry writing can be exhausting but the joy of ‘conquering’ a piece can be as exhilarating as cresting a mountain 🙂
Rick
I like the analogy of “conquering a piece”.
In mountaineering we plan on the best route to the top; establish a base camp and then the thrill of playing with rock and earth, the rising, the detours, thought always on the summit, never on the chasm opening up beneath – in fact that never colours the climb – and then the planting, the joining.
Again, a great piece.
Absolutely – spot on – poetry involves chipping away loose earth to find a firm finger hold – and the refining is continuous. I find, as I edit old work, that a few words here and there (added or removed) suddenly illuminate it – whole emphases are dumped and new aspects arise – since the lock-down I have been engaged solely on editing – it’s a long but engrossing process
The stuff I’m posting here is taken at random – all my stuff needs drastic editing and pruning some more than others 🙂
I seem to recall reading this on UKA sometime ago. It’s too long ago to see how the re-write has improved it, but it’s still made me chuckle at her cheeky obsession.
Thanks, Guaj, I have the original saved – my early stuff was written purely to perform – since that is done with now – at my age possibly forever – I see how the performance aspect militated against good writing – you can get away with anything if you present it confidently – and I generally did – however what pleases a live audience can irritate a silent ‘paper’ one – and nuances and gestures do not translate easily to paper. Hence my re-writings – most of my long ones are now 30% shorter but still pack in the same… Read more »